Cloak as Sixth System? And More

posted on August 13th, 2012, 8:23 pm

Cloak right now is linked with the weapons system even though it really isn't. It should be seperately disabled or damaged from weapons. It would open up some possibilities as far as map objects and special weapons. Including adding a cloak system upgrade for Klingons and Romulans just like for the other systems. It would be a one level upgrade to the best possible for each of those two races. Taq'roja and Helev get cloaks for every ship and station(so no cloak generator needed for Helev). The cloak for the stations would last two minutes.

Something else, how about seperating the upgrades for ships and stations? The ship upgrades would be 15% cheaper and 10 seconds faster than now while the seperate system upgrades for stations would be 25% more expensive and 20 seconds longer than current. Unlike for ships the sensor upgrade for your stations would increase their sensor range by one level(if its short by default then it get medium) and it only would be one level of upgrade too. For Outposts it would be two levels with the second giving short range cloak detect. Especially since stations clearly have much more room for extra shield generators and sensor arrays and what not. The station upgrades would be handled like the Outposts do it now keeping the upgrades from the research stations to ships only. The percentages for the ship upgrades would be the same while for stations it would be like 5% more.

posted on August 13th, 2012, 10:31 pm

Having cloak as its own system would be a good idea. I would like to see this change made. It would add a lot of depth. However I suspect that this is not possible in the Armada II engine, or at least would be very difficult.

posted on August 24th, 2012, 9:49 pm

Yeah im pretty sure it would be very difficult aswell.

posted on August 25th, 2012, 9:09 pm

Personally, anything that makes cloak stronger is bad for game balance.

posted on August 25th, 2012, 10:03 pm

Personally, anything that makes cloak stronger is bad for game balance.

Why do you assume making cloak a seperate subsystem would influence balance in a bad way?

I personally don't see much of an advantage for cloakers to have it this way - the cloak itself can still be damaged, destroyed and disabled - also it doesn't necessarily need to have as many hitpoints as other subsystems. I mean, cloaking devices already have their few weaknesses; especially against B'rel-groups and AoE-disabling special weapons.

posted on August 25th, 2012, 11:55 pm

Personally, anything that makes cloak stronger is bad for game balance.

Why do you assume making cloak a seperate subsystem would influence balance in a bad way?

I personally don't see much of an advantage for cloakers to have it this way - the cloak itself can still be damaged, destroyed and disabled - also it doesn't necessarily need to have as many hitpoints as other subsystems. I mean, cloaking devices already have their few weaknesses; especially against B'rel-groups and AoE-disabling special weapons.

There could also be new passives/weapons that specificly disable the cloak which would open up a whole new method of balance. Having cloak be a separate subsystem would be a significant change, but not necessarily one that upsets balance.

posted on August 26th, 2012, 7:58 am

The idea is horrible for balance.

• More subsystems means more overall subsystem hit points, unless System value is reduced, in which case every cloak-using ship that needs special energy for other abilities would need to be rebalanced.
• More subsystems strengthens cloaked ships with regards to their interactions with random subsystem disablers like Nanites.
• Takes away a class of known cloak-counter abilities (weapon disablers), makes it easier for cloaked ships to survive encounters, would need to reevaluate cost of cloakers in light of that.
• New anti-cloak abilities would need to be added and balanced.

These are just a few things that I could come up with in a couple of minutes, and all represent significant balance shifts that are more likely to end up in favour of cloak users.

posted on August 26th, 2012, 8:47 am

Actually, it makes sense.

In canon, the ships that can cloak either lose weapons and cloak to run away, or lose their cloak but keep their weapons available. (Think the one DS9 episode involving Klingons who later attack the station. )

A timer could be added to the cloak to show that it has a limited period of time before shutting down, and this timer could be set up so you can cloak even before its fully recharged, but then you end up with less time under cloak. That, or it can be set up so you need it to fully recharge before cloaking. Either one is good.

posted on August 26th, 2012, 11:18 am

The idea is horrible for balance.

• Takes away a class of known cloak-counter abilities (weapon disablers), makes it easier for cloaked ships to survive encounters, would need to reevaluate cost of cloakers in light of that.
• New anti-cloak abilities would need to be added and balanced.

1. Adding a cloaking-device-subsystem would absolutely not take away a whole class of cloak-counter ablities we have now. I mean, critical shot wouldn't work anymore but anything else, from pings to manual targeting would still apply. The chance of getting the cloak disabled with a polaron-torp or nanites would be smaller yes, but only slightly as the chance to disable weapons already is around 20%. With a sixth subsystem it would be around ~16-17%. Not an important difference to me.

2. Yup, it'll need weapons that particularly take out the cloak. Adding new special weapons or tweaking old ones hasn't been impossible before and I think this would be interesting.

posted on August 26th, 2012, 6:19 pm

posted on Sun Aug 26, 2012 3:58 am
The idea is horrible for balance.

More subsystems means more overall subsystem hit points, unless System value is reduced, in which case every cloak-using ship that needs special energy for other abilities would need to be rebalanced.
More subsystems strengthens cloaked ships with regards to their interactions with random subsystem disablers like Nanites.
Takes away a class of known cloak-counter abilities (weapon disablers), makes it easier for cloaked ships to survive encounters, would need to reevaluate cost of cloakers in light of that.
New anti-cloak abilities would need to be added and balanced.

These are just a few things that I could come up with in a couple of minutes, and all represent significant balance shifts that are more likely to end up in favour of cloak users.

1.You are correct that adding a sixth subsystem would drastically change the balance of hitpoints & energy. This would have to be changed to prevent unfair advantages on either side.
2.This would present a boost to cloakers. However abilities can already be made so as to affect subsystems to different levels. Example - Nanites are more likely to affect the engine subsystem than others. This could be used to balance that factor. RedEyedRaven also mentioned that there would only be a few percent difference (I do not know how much affect those few percent would be, that would need to be looked at for balance's sake).
3 &4.While some cloack counters could remain unchanged(see RedEyedRaven), you are correct that some abilities would need reworked. Example - Critical Shot currently disables weapons and by extension cloak. If cloak was a separate subsystem then a decision on whether or not this ability should disable one, the other, randomly one of the 2, or both.

If the only change was to add a cloak subsystem, then I would agree with you MadHatter. That change only would result in balance problems. The adding of a cloak subsystem would require many other changes to fully integrate this idea effectively. That is what I would propose.

The main desired effect would be for ships to loose cloak or weapons, but not both from the same cause(not accounting for special abilities).

Of course, this all requires the possibility of adding a subsystem. Does anyone know if this is possible? My guess is no, but I cannot say for a fact. Even if this was possible, the work required could be too much for the gains - that would be for the devs to decide.

posted on August 26th, 2012, 9:02 pm

RedEyedRaven also mentioned that there would only be a few percent difference (I do not know how much affect those few percent would be, that would need to be looked at for balance's sake).

Although my calculation is only based on the count of subsystems and an equal chance between all of them to be disabled by weapons that disable random subsystems. The ~3% can have a bigger impact ingame as it looks by the small number, but it won't be much more than a smaller noticeable difference. On a ship with cloak most people will cheer on disabling the cloak rather than anything else anyway, as it makes withdrawing warbirds or klingon heavy cruisers very difficult.

posted on August 26th, 2012, 10:22 pm

I won't disagree that it's closer to canon, but considering the amount of work the devs would have to do -- even if this was feasible -- in order to keep balance where it ought to be, I don't think this is worth pursuing as an idea.

posted on August 26th, 2012, 11:12 pm

I won't disagree that it's closer to canon, but considering the amount of work the devs would have to do -- even if this was feasible -- in order to keep balance where it ought to be, I don't think this is worth pursuing as an idea.

The amount of time would be the hardest part, and I agree that it should not take priority. I would still like to hear from a dev if this would even be possible. If it is, stick it on the bottom of the todo.

posted on August 27th, 2012, 8:24 am

Hmm well cannon cloak is not only related to weapons but shields... in a broader sense though, it seems like its more connected to power reserves yes? Maybe some sort of power level system could be implemented for all races at somepoint in the future. Cloaking could also cause a 10 point drop in engine speed, as it takes up so much power...

posted on August 27th, 2012, 4:30 pm

In a broader sense though, it seems like its more connected to power reserves yes? Maybe some sort of power level system could be implemented for all races at somepoint in the future. Cloaking could also cause a 10 point drop in engine speed, as it takes up so much power

That's exactly how they had it for Bridge Commander. When cloaked, your power reserves would drain, and when you were out of power...well, lets just say that your lit up like a Christmas tree.

This mechanic had only one flaw that made sense. If your warp core took damage, it would start cutting into the main batteries, then into emergency power. Sense cloak would take from emergency power, you couldn't take a lot of damage to the core, as each hit reduced the available power.

One thing I noted when playing the game though: if you have every system off, except maybe some sensors, as a BoP, you could be cloaked forever.

Maybe it could be set up so if your engines take damage, the energy available for cloaking is reduced, as is its regeneration rate,